


The Perks of Having a Time Machine (Or: What Could Possibly Go Wrong With This?)

by AbschaumNo1



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Era, I'm sorry for hurting Grantaire I guess?, M/M, Time Travel, both happen, if you leave out the last sentence you can probably read it as brotp, the combeferre/grantaire isn't that present, the title sounds funnier than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbschaumNo1/pseuds/AbschaumNo1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combefere has built a time machine. It doesn't quite work like it's supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perks of Having a Time Machine (Or: What Could Possibly Go Wrong With This?)

**Author's Note:**

> An anon sent me [this](http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/9761.html?replyto=1220641) prompt on tumblr and asked if I could consider filling it. Well, anon, here you are. I hope you like what I made out of it =)
> 
> Unbeta'd because I got ill while writing and have been in the middle of packing for university ever since. In fact I'm leaving for Wales in several hours...

No one had believed in Combeferre’s time machine when he had told them about it for the first time. They all were convinced that Combeferre was crazy, a great friend and intelligent man, but crazy.

“Maybe you should go home and rest,” Enjolras told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. There was concern in his eyes that only echoed the concern all of them felt.

“No, you don’t understand! I really built a time machine,” Combeferre insisted.

“My friend, are you sure you are alright?” Courfeyrac’s concern was much more visible than that of Enjolras.

“Yes, I am. I am sure in every possible way that there is nothing wrong with me. I have not drunk, I have not taken any opiates and I made very sure to sleep enough. Joly can take a look at me and he will find nothing.” Combeferre sighed, and rubbed a hand over his forehead.

“He doesn’t look like he has caught anything,” Joly piped up. “But I believe it would be better if you went home and took some rest, just in case.”

Combeferre sighed again, before he threw up his hands in defeat. “Alright. If it eases your mind I will go home and rest.”

“I will come with you,” Jehan said and rose from his place next to Grantaire. “I am sure it will make our dear Joly sleep easier tonight if he knows that Combeferre got home safely.”

Joly gave the poet a thankful smile. “Thank you, Jehan.”

Combeferre stood up from the table he had shared with Enjolras and Courfeyrac and slipped into his coat and don his hat. He waited for Jehan to do the same and then they left together, venturing into the crisp cold of the Parisian November night.

There was an easy silence between them as they walked towards Combeferre’s small apartment, Jehan watching the people around them go about their business, probably composing his next poem in his head already. Combeferre didn’t want to intrude and stayed silent. He was rather surprised when Jehan spoke.

“You know, I have never thought about the possibilities of time travel before.”

“I have to admit that I haven’t either. But it is quite fascinating, isn’t it?”

“Just think of all the things we could see, the events we could experience first-hand.” There was a glint of excitement in Jehan’s eyes that easily matched what Combeferre felt.

“The scientific possibilities,” Combeferre said. “We could easily find out about historic events, move on progress.”

“Exactly. Oh what I would give for this time machine of yours to be real.”

“But it is. If you will come up with me I will show you.”

“You are serious about this, aren’t you?” Jehan looked at him with wide eyes.

“Of course I am serious. Why shouldn’t I be?”

“I mean…” Jehan shrugged. “It just sounds so fantastical, like it’s too good to be true.”

“I swear to you, my friend, that I have been as serious about this as I could be. I really have built a time machine.”

“You have to show me, Combeferre.” The excitement and wonder in Jehan was real and Combeferre found himself smiling warmly at him.

“I will, my friend, I will.”

They reached the building in which Combeferre lived a few minutes later. He let Jehan in and led the way up into his small apartment.

He had been surprised that he had been able to fit the time machine into the main room of his apartment, but somehow it fit, even though it was a bit cramped. The room looked very different from the way Jehan had seen it last. The table that Combeferre usually worked on and that was littered with books and papers was pushed against a wall; the small sofa that had taken up most of the remaining space had been moved into his bedroom. The time machine now took up most of the space, a strange construct made of metal tight in the middle of Combeferre’s apartment. Jehan looked at it with wide eyed curiosity.

“Does it work?”

Combeferre shrugged. “I think so. But I cannot tell for sure, since I haven’t tried it yet.”

“Let me try.”

“Jehan…I can’t. The risks…”

“The risks are there whether you try it or I do. And I really do want to try it.”

Combeferre sighed. “I really don’t think it is a good idea.”

“We cannot know that until we tried.”

“Jehan…”

“No, do not say anything. Let me try it.”

“You are intent on doing this?”

“Yes.”

Combeferre sighed again. “If you insist. Even though I still do not believe it to be a good idea.”

Jehan sat down on the chair that was in the middle of the construction. “So how does it work?”

“It is quite simple. You turn these to the date you want to visit and then you pull this lever here and that’s it.”

Jehan nodded and looked at the switches thoughtfully before he turned them. When he was finished he pulled the lever Combeferre had indicated.

There was a whirring of some sorts and a clattering as the parts of the machine worked together. Combeferre waited for it to disappear along with Jehan. However, no such thing happened. There was a slow hiss and then there was silence.

“Jehan?” Combeferre asked, but there was no reply. “Jean? Can you hear me, Jean?” He was almost panicking now. Jehan only sat there and stared at nothing. Combeferre tried everything he could think of, he shook his friend, called him again and again, he even tried to splash water in his face, but nothing worked; Jean Prouvaire didn’t move, he only stared.

Combeferre had taken to pacing around the room, thinking about what he would tell their friends, and even worse, Jehan’s parents, when he heard a gasp behind him and Jehan suddenly became aware of his surroundings again.

“Jehan!” Combeferre immediately moved to his friend’s side. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” It took Jehan a few moments to catch his breath but then he looked at Combeferre with a glint in his eyes and thrumming with excitement.

“That was amazing!”

“So something did happen?” Combeferre was surprised.

“Of course something happened! Do you have no trust in your own work my friend?”

“It just looked like nothing happened on this side.”

“Oh, but I was there! Back home, in the garden, when I first climbed a tree. It was amazing! Of course it was more a memory than actually travelling through time, but it was the exact memory.” He jumped up. “I am sorry my friend, but I will have to tell the others. This is so astonishing!” He gave Combeferre a last smile and then he was out of the door before his friend could stop him.

Over the course of the next two weeks almost everyone tried the time machine, and Combeferre found out that it really only transported the mind, and always back in time to memories of that person. They had no way of controlling how long it took the user of the machine to come back to their senses, but with assistance of Joly Combeferre soon found out that it did no damage to the person using it. The only person among them who did not want to use the time machine was Grantaire.

“Nothing waits for me in the past,” he told Combeferre one evening when they were sitting on the medicine student’s sofa. “All I have, I have here in the present.”

Combeferre smiled sadly and leaned forward to put a hand on the cynic’s shoulder.

“And I am glad that you are here.”

Grantaire only gave him a thankful smile and drank the last of his wine.

As much as they all enjoyed the time machine it didn’t take long until things started to go wrong. It began with Bossuet (and they should probably have anticipated that) who managed the first full time travel. It was neither long, nor particularly dangerous, but he managed to return with an ugly bruise on his face. He laughed it off and told them he did only run into a tree, but it made some of them cautious of the abilities of the time machine. It proved that they were not entirely mistaken to do so.

Bossuet was only the first of them to take his body with them when travelling, it happened to the others, too. And it seemed like it was not necessarily the past anymore. Jehan returned one day speaking excitedly about the wonders of the Paris he had seen; of coaches without horses and people talking to each other despite being miles apart. Enjolras spoke of a war, of Paris occupied, of news about millions of dead people (“But still they fought for their freedom!” he said with a happy glint in his eyes.) Bahorel said he had stumbled into the middle of a student protest and apparently he had gotten into a good fist fight.

But still they were sure that the machine wasn’t dangerous and they carried on using it. The periods of time people vanished for became longer, first it was only several minutes, then hours, then days, then weeks. Courfeyrac disappeared into what were most likely the middle ages for almost a month.

“They had a festival,” he told them after his return. “The festival of fools they called it. And there was a very boring play, but there was also a beautiful gypsy dancing. She was executed a few days before I returned. It was a sad day.” Apparently Courfeyrac had made fast friends with a group of students who had been gracious enough to give him shelter and food while he was there. “They were good enough people, but they were not ready for freedom yet.”

(Meanwhile Grantaire sat in a corner and drank. He was watching them all with a weird look in his eyes. Combeferre thought it reminded him awfully of fear. He sent a reassuring smile his way, hoping it would be enough for now.

Later Grantaire would confide to him that he was sure something bad would happen; that they would not know what the time machine would do next. “I’m afraid I will lose one of you. You should stop using that thing,” he would say and Combeferre would know what he really wanted to say and he would put an arm around Grantaire’s shoulder and tell him “We’re not going anywhere.” Grantaire would only smile sadly (Little did they know of the future).)

It was some time later that they found out just how dangerous the time machine could be. It appeared that Grantaire’s fears were not entirely unreasonable. It started with Joly and Feuilly. They didn’t realise it first, because it was not unusual for the travellers to be gone for one or two weeks at that point. But when neither of them returned after a few weeks they began to fear that more had happened. The group was jittery, not quite the same without their friends (Combeferre hated the look in Grantaire’s eyes when he took a swig of his absinthe. He still hated it when they sat together in Combeferre’s flat).

But still it seemed like they didn’t learn (or maybe the endless possibilities at their disposal were too addicting). Bossuet and Jehan were the next ones to go missing. No one was too surprised at this point. Bossuet and Joly had been so joined at their hips at times that it had become weird to see one of them without the other. And Jehan… the poet had probably been the most excited one of them; it was unsurprising that he would try it again despite everything.

(“Will I lose the rest of you, too?” Grantaire asked and Combeferre couldn’t reply. He honestly didn’t know anymore.)

It went on over the next few weeks. Courfeyrac went, then Bahorel, then Enjolras, then Combeferre.

(“I’ll bring them back,” he promised Grantaire before he vanished. The sceptic only drank from his bottle and smiled cynically.)

It took Grantaire almost a month to try and follow his friends. For the first two weeks he had held on to the hope of their return, then he had fought his own doubts and tried to convince himself to go after them (what was he without his friends?)

In the end he did it and found out that the disappearances were not everything the machine had in store. He had hoped to end up wherever his friends were (however improbable that was), but instead it seemed like he got totally unstuck in time. He saw a lot of different times (and a lot of different places due to travels in these times), but he never saw his friends. He had no influence on how long he stayed or to which time he went. It was the horror. He saw the rebellion of 1832 fail (and wondered whether it would have been the same if the others, if Enjolras had been there or if they would have died, too (he suspected the latter)), he saw wars (the trenches of what they called the First World War were no nice place), he saw times of peace (the Romans were good peace keepers), but most of all he drank (what was he without his friends, without a home, without a time to call his own?). He tried to kill himself, but always travelled just before the feat was done. He met poets, artists, politicians (and on one very notable occasion the king), but he did not find what he was looking for (oblivion, or maybe just his friends, no, his family). He drank himself into a stupor and woke up in a new time, he got in a fight and woke up in another time (he began to sense a pattern, but then it didn’t work like this again). And then, when he was on the run from some Roman soldiers through the streets of Paris (Lutetia he reminded himself) he managed to jump into the Seine.

He woke up in a very whit and very well lit room. A weird machine was somehow attached to him and made ‘(very annoying) beeping sounds; a needle attached to something he could not quite describe was stuck into his arm and there was some sort of mask that covered his mouth and nose. The sheets were rough but of better quality than he was used to. He tried to sit up but was held back by a firm hand and found Enjolras sitting next to his bed. The leader smiled.

“I am glad that you are awake, my friend.”

“Combeferre? The others?” Grantaire’s voice sounded rough and he cleared his throat.

“It’s ok. They are all here. They’ll be glad to hear that you are awake.”

A moment of silence before Grantaire spoke again, disbelief clear in his voice. “I found you.”

Enjolras nodded. “Yes, you have found us.” He got up and pressed a button somewhere above Grantaire’s head. “I just called the nurse. They will want to have a look at you. Just…act like you can’t remember anything but your name.”

Grantaire could only nod before a nurse entered the room. She smiled at him.

“I see you woke up. I’ll call the doctor and then we’ll be right back.”

What followed was a sheer marathon of check-ups, weird instruments stuck into various places and endless questions about whether he remembered anything. He learned that they had found him at the riverbank of the Seine, unconscious. He had been brought to the hospital and when the police had looked into it they couldn’t find any missing persons who fit his description. Combeferre (who worked as an assistant doctor at the hospital) had suggested that Enjolras should sit with him so he wasn’t alone when he woke up. Enjolras stayed with him while they checked him through and helped him with the paperwork (he would explain later that they had all gone through that process to get new documents so they were able to work and study). It took them a few days but then Grantaire was handed a provisional ID-card and was allowed to leave.

The world outside the hospital was overwhelming at first. It was loud, it was hectic and there were more people than Grantaire had ever seen before. Pictures were moving and had a more realistic quality to them than ever before. There were so many things at once that Grantaire was disoriented for a moment. Enjolras was a steady presence by his side, seemingly unfazed by everything he steered Grantaire towards one of the vehicles waiting in front of the hospital (as Jehan had said there were no horses). They got in and Enjolras told the driver an address. It was much faster than a coach, even though it didn’t seem like it sometimes. There were so many of them on the streets that they only made slow progress sometimes. Grantaire concentrated on breathing.

They got out in front of a small house, cramped in between two similar looking houses. They walked the two steps up to the door and Enjolras took a key out of his pocket. “They’ll all be waiting in there. Are you ready?” Grantaire nodded and took a deep breath while Enjolras unlocked the door and led him into the house.

They waited in the living area of the building and true to Enjolras word all of them were there. They cheered when he entered the room and he could hardly react before he was somehow wrapped in his friends. He smiled; happy to see them again, but there was still something missing.

When they finally released him he could see the person he had looked forward to see the most. Courfeyrac stepped aside and made way for Combeferre who stepped forward. When he saw him Grantaire’s face lit up and it took him but a second to close the distance between them and fling himself at Combeferre, who caught him with a soft laugh and wrapped his arms tightly around him.

“I’m happy to see you, too, love,” he whispered into Grantaire’s ear.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also come and say hello on [Tumblr](http://abschaumno1.tumblr.com).


End file.
